Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Last week, someone in one of my nail art FB groups posted a gorgeous mani with stylized layered pine trees in bright jeweltone crèmes, which reminded me: hey, I have a ton of nature-themed stamping plates that include different pine trees... indoor, bright CF lighting Shleee Polish releases new stuff each Friday, and more often than not includes a weekly mystery.  These are truly unknowns - no hints at all as to color or finish - and though I tend to avoid such things, her creations are so unique it's hard to pass one of these by if there's already treats in my shopping cart.  This one, Softy, is an indeed soft lavender with pearly lilac shimmer and a light scattering of very fine holo dust.  I'm showing 2 coats here, but might go with a 3rd if I was going to wear it solo.  outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight I loved the twilight-sky glow of Softy so much that I abandoned plans for candy-colored trees and kept the rest natural.  My ring finger is part of a mounta...

 Ethereal Lacquer is probably the most accurately named polish brand I can think of - she has indeed made a name for herself in ethereally lovely, sheer, shimmery goodness.  Mystery polishes are never my jam... but she's sucked me into needing some on more than one occasion. indoor, bright CF lighting Moon Water was part of a Moon Dreams Mystery trio last year, and all 3 of them were just beautiful.   outdoor, afternoon daylight This is a sheer aqua jelly, slightly dusty and subtly greyed out - not at all a bright swimming pool turquoise.  That dustiness makes it feel more Fall to me, and I'm very sure helps keep it wearable - despite my beloved aqua colors sometimes causing the dreaded lobster hands look, there was never any of that here. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight I'm showing 3 coats here and still have a bit of VNL in any lighting that's not bright enough to cause the shimmer to catch fire.  This polish is, of course, all about that shimmer - a fin...

With some cool snaps lately,and my nails being just the right length, it's definitely thermal weather. indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X has really been knocking this year's mystery series out of the park, with each box having one Clarins 230 shimmer polish and one "sister UP" polish, plus a little treat or two.  The August box, Rick & Morty themed, might be my fave so far.  window-filtered daylight Portal Gun starts with a black-to-colorless thermal base that builds in 3 coats to a milky, slightly smoky translucency rather than being clear.  Baroness X has played with different ingredients in these black-to-clear thermals, and this one is a clear winner for me (a stunner compared to the somewhat similar  Ghastly ).  outdoor, overcast daylight The black base of the cold state makes the flakies and sister UP shimmer into a vampy teal-green shifting blue to purple around the edges. indoor, CF lighting As the base warms up and become...

Bee's Knees keeps releasing double handfuls of  fantastic mystery polishes on a new theme each month, and if you're willing to be patient and pay a (very minor and reasonable) premium, to pick the ones you want after the fact.  From the April bags, this was my super fave, and one of the reasons I bought mystery bags rather than waiting. indoor, CF lighting Luna Moth Wing is about dead on for its namesake.  This is a pale green somewhere between celery and mint, very subtly greyed out, lightly sprinkled with holo dust/microflake and 'sister' shimmer of the type related to Clarins 230 (this time in green to gold).  It's a very wearable, soft pastel, nowhere near neon or in-your-face, with the subtlety of the shimmer being a light accent to the earthy color. window-filtered afternoon daylight At 2 coats, Luna was decently opaque; 3 brought it to completely solid.  In bright light, there would be small flashes of either the shimmer particles or the holo ...

Last month I received the most recent mystery box from Baroness X, and both of them were 100% in my polish wheelhouse.   The first one to jump on my nails is Seadragon. indoor, bright CF lighting Seadragon is a bright oceanic blue jelly - just the tiniest suggestion more green-leaning than cobalt or Klein blue - liberally sprinkled with the red-to-green shifty shimmer from Clarins 230 and iridescent flakies. indoor, window-filtered overcast daylight Some of the mystery boxes arrived with a jelly undie for the blue polish, others with an undie for the teal polish.  I got the latter, so I'm showing Seadragon at 3 coats solo, which was perfectly visually opaque to my eyes.  It's pigmented enough to really work as a topper only for things in a similar color scheme (anywhere from blue to purple), but I much prefer this ocean color solo rather than darkened up with a more opaque undie. indoor, office fluorescent lighting + a stray sunbeam In bright light,...

The Smithsonian Museum is currently running a 90s film festival, and while my work & life schedules didn't allow me to go check out all of the ones I was interested in seeing on the big screen again, me and a few friends were able to hit up one of my all time super faves, The Fifth Element. indoor, CF lighting I needed the perfect Diva Plavalaguna shade of blue, which I found in my stash as Baroness X Mermaid Silk.  This lovely blue somewhere between cornflower and royal has a dusting of holo and a pretty aqua contrasting shimmer.  Nicely opaque in 2 coats, it was just what I needed to start this look. indoor, bright CF lighting I picked up NerdNails plate 20, all of which is images and phrases from The Fifth Element, quite a while ago and like so many things it's sat around unused for far too long.  Well, if there was ever a time to try it out, this was obviously it. indoor, bright CF lighting I stamped the 4 element symbols engraved on th...

After loving the look of the first half of the February Baroness X OGUP/Sisters duo, clearly the second half needed playing with as well. indoor, CF lighting I've started with 2 coats of a recent Shleee mystery polish, The Long Night.  This one is a deeply saturated prussian blue that was about 75% opaque in one coat.  If I was going to use a topper with more coverage (such as that prior magnetic), a single coat would have been enough.  indoor, CF lighting Since the topper I'm using with it is designed to be very sheer and let the base color show through, I'm showing 2 coats of The Long Night and no topcoat here.  The brush and thickness were about perfect, requiring only a little cleanup - a good thing, because like most saturated blues, this does want to stain cuticle skin. indoor, CF lighting On top of The Long Night, I have one thickly dabbed layer of the topper in the BX duo, Estrellaria. window-filtered overcast daylight Much like fo...

For my birthday, I busted out my birthday month polish, March 2015 from Enchanted. indoor, bright CF lighting March 2015 is a variant on a frequent theme in my collection - blue with pink flash.  In this iteration, we have a veeerrrrry slightly greyed aquamarine, a subtle barbie pink shimmer, and a very fine-particle linear holo.  This bottle is a whole lot more toned-down than similarly-composed things like  Orly Angel Rain  or  CBL Katarina . outdoor, bright sunlight for all the rest of the swatches I think it's the little touch of grey in the color, but March 2015 had just a bit of a chameleon tendency to look different in different lighting, sometimes more grey or more blue or more minty aqua.  The grey also helps make sure that the cool pastel doesn't give one the dreaded lobster-hands, and I think means it's wearable by more skin tones. Most of my other Enchanteds have a smooth, thin, crelly-type formula, but March 2015 is a much dens...